Green Energy Jetpacks
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Many humans are born with their soulmates' last words to them written on their wrists. Many aliens think this is very, very weird. [Cassie/Aftran, Writing Rainbow: Green treat for only90sbirdsremember.]


For the tag "not realizing you're literal soulmates until it's too late." :(

A couple lines of dialogue are stolen/modified from Book 29.

* * *

Rachel knew what my soulmark was, of course. It's the kind of thing that girls show their friends at middle-school sleepovers, and gape in wonder and confusion. I assume middle-school boys had their own equivalent, that Jake and Marco grew up speculating about the scribbles, or lack thereof, on their arms.

Rachel's was a single word. "That could mean anything," she groaned. "I mean, maybe my husband will have a heart attack giving me directions in the car."

"We won't have cars in the future," I said, "we'll have jetpacks and stuff, that don't pollute."

Mine, despite being four times as long, didn't seem much better. Until the war began, and I wondered if Jake would ever say those words to me. Maybe in the middle of a battle, he'd order us to leave him behind. [The Yeerks won't take me alive,] he'd declare in grim thoughtspeak. [But you'll be free.]

And then Tom's Yeerk infested him, and I wondered if it counted as your last words if it wasn't really you talking, if a Yeerk spoke with your voice. What if we had to kill Jake to keep the Yeerks from learning our secret? [You think you've won,] he'd taunt, [but you'll be free-] _Only when the Andalites come to bail you out, if they ever do?_ Would we have to cut him off mid-sentence?

Ax morphed Jake, of course, and that led to him asking why Jake had a soulmark when his normal human morph was a nully. Tobias and Marco tried to explain that to him; I didn't envy that conversation. Mostly because I didn't actually know what Jake's mark said, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. We shared so much, more than any normal teenagers. I didn't feel like I needed fate to speak to me.

When I let Aftran into my brain, the first time, she riffled through all my memories. Mostly the war, laughing derisively at the "bandits" Visser Three was obsessed with, but some before-playing horsie in the barn, Thanksgiving with Jake and Great-Grandma. And my mark.

[Hey!] I said. That's private.

[Karen has one like this.]

[Most people do,] I said. [If you enslave humans, you know that.]

[You really believe this? That at the end of your life, you'll discover if you've been with the "right" person?]

[The end of my life could be pretty soon at this rate.]

[Karen...she thinks it's a silly adult thing. A superstition, perhaps.]

[Well, how old is she? She should be in grade school, not worrying about finding true love. Or being taken over by an alien.]

[If someone were to find a true partner, and share everything with them, even these intimacies. Couldn't they just refuse to say that? Surely they would not want to hasten their loved one's death.]

[It doesn't work like that,] I tried to explain. [You...you want to be the one. To know that you found the right person.]

[Then do elderly people say each other's quotations every day? Just to ensure that they are connected?]

[It doesn't work like that either!]

[You are a truly fatalistic species.]

[Didn't you say your parents have to die in order to create you? To merge together with two others and give up their lives? You don't have the right to judge us.]

[I see,] said Aftran.

She moved on, considering the war. How we'd morphed dolphins to find Ax. How Marco had discovered that his mom was a Controller. And then she used me to morph osprey, and take to the air.

[Then you must believe,] she added, as she felt her first thermal, adjusted to the morph's instincts, [that Karen is destined to live a long life. Have a lover cross her path, if only briefly.]

* * *

I didn't expect to see Aftran again. Well, I didn't expect any of it, really, not to get a second chance because of the natural morphing. Not that she would wind up facing Kandrona starvation because of her change of heart. Not that everyone would be too sick to help me smuggle her away. Not that she would tell me how to save Ax's life.

But there we were, leaning against the barn sink. [I knew you would come for me, Cassie,] she said gently.

I had so much to say to her, I didn't know where to begin. [You couldn't have known,] I teased. [I barely knew it would work.]

[You believe in soulmarks,] she retorted. I[ can see the future. Enough to believe in you.]

I gave a weak laugh. So much had happened to both of us since we'd last met, and she was still giving me a hard time about human soulmarks. [Thank you for saving Ax.]

[There's a first time for everything,] she noted. [Now I need your help.]

[Of course.]

[You need to kill me.]

[No!] I protested. But she had answers for all of my objections-I'd seen Kandrona starvation, I couldn't let someone I cared for go through that. She couldn't stay in me, not without risking everything we were fighting for.

[I know you take no joy in killing, and I know you-you value me,] she said. [But I also know that you are strong. And have made great sacrifices to do what is right.]

At any moment she could have seized control of me, if she wanted. Taken over my body, my voice, my morphs. Yet I knew she wouldn't. All the things she would never force me to do, and yet the one thing she needed required her to leave me. To trust I'd see it through.

She was delving into my emotions, I realized, knew them even when I couldn't put them into words. And then she opened her mind back to me. Instead of seeing her childhood in the pool or her battles alongside Estril, I saw her facing trial with confidence. Her embellishing stories of the "Andalite bandits" to other Yeerks in search of a better way, never naming me but speaking of me in awe. I felt how, in spite of the details she'd changed, that admiration was real. In only a few minutes in my head-and days in the wilderness, still wary and distrustful-she'd come to look at me as something far more than a host.

[I could say it,] she challenged. [And would you believe? Or would you say I wasn't playing fair?]

[You're an alien,] I pointed out, [nothing's normal about that.]

Words or no words, this was something I could have never had with a human. I wasn't naive enough to think being a Controller was a good thing; many Yeerks, perhaps most, were trespassing where they had no right, enslaving other beings for their own gain. Yet Aftran knew me from the inside out. She had shared my soul, as deeply as anyone could, and I had welcomed it.

[I'm sorry,] I finally said. [It shouldn't-have been this way.] I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. She could have done so much more, yes, but every path she might have taken had risks of its own. I didn't want to leave her with regret.

[Thank you for everything,] she said. [I'm going to leave you now. I can't control what choice you make.] She didn't need to move my mouth to smile; I felt her peace. [But you will be free.]

Free, to fracture my soul in my hands.


End file.
